Full disclosure of details of the Electoral Bonds Scheme (EBS) by the State Bank of India and Election Commission following stern admonition by the Supreme Court of India, is proof that despite dismantling of the licence-permit-quota regime in 1991, government still exercises substantial control over industry and commerce. That’s why a large number of companies […]
Amid all the hype and hoopla about India having become the world’s fifth largest economy with a $4 trillion GDP and fastest annual rate of 6.2 percent GDP growth, it’s an unpleasant, but necessary duty to strike a discordant note.
GDP should be measured according to the per capita metric and not by way of absolute […]
The midnight demolition of miner Wakeel Hassan’s home in Delhi by bulldozers of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has again highlighted the contempt and cruelty with which government and its agencies interact with bottom-of–pyramid citizens. Hassan attained national fame last November when he led a team of 12 self-trained ‘rat-hole’ miners (who venture down narrow […]
There was always a bad smell about the electoral bonds scheme (EBS) introduced by the ruling BJP government in the Union Budget 2017-18 as a Money Bill (exempt from approval by the Rajya Sabha). The unanimous judgement of a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered on February 15, striking it down as unconstitutional is […]
The latest supreme court verdict in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape and multiple murder case which dates back to the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, has somewhat redeemed the image of the apex court which has failed to mandate the root and branch judicial reforms which independent India patiently awaits. An estimated 4,000 citizens of India’s […]
Contrary to the assertions of die-hard Left influenced secularists and regressive Muslim leaders, the smooth establishment and consecration of the resplendent Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 will strengthen Hindu-Muslim harmony rather than damage it. As such, it bodes well for snuffing out the embers of communal fires lit by Muslim warlords from Central […]
The sweeping victory of the BJP in three out of four legislative assembly elections — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — whose results were declared on December 3, has some important lessons for INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) and the Congress party which is likely to lead this 28-party alliance in General Election 2024 […]
In the latest mercer index 2023 of the world’s most livable cities, Hyderabad is top-ranked in India. But in the global index, it is ranked a lowly #153. Urban blight defined by air pollution, road traffic jams, frequent electricity and water supply cuts, poor law and order maintenance, is spreading across big and small cities, […]
After years of dithering, on November 8 the University Grants Commission (UGC) published a draft of rules and regulations which detail the terms and conditions under which foreign universities will be permitted to establish campuses in India.
The primary driver behind this initiative is the large and ever increasing number of Indian school leavers and college […]
The death on November 14 of Subroto Roy (75), former Managing Worker of the Lucknow-based Sahara Group of finance and real estate companies, received considerable coverage in the media.
By any yardstick Roy’s rags-to-riches rise was impressive. At the peak of his career, this enterprising entrepreneur who began as a chit fund manager, owned a civil […]
There is a dangerous sickness of selfishness and indifference, if not hostility, towards children spreading far and wide within Indian society. Two glaring examples of callous cruelty towards youngest citizens highlight this malaise which is becoming endemic in this benighted republic, whose leaders are given to making loud proclamations about India’s inevitable emergence as a […]
Industry leader and corporate tycoon N.R. Narayana Murthy’s exhortation to youth to work 70 hours per week to enable the country to grow into a $30 trillion (from the current $3.7 trillion) economy by 2047, has stirred a hornet’s nest among the woke brigades. Suddenly, trendy television news anchors and grave editorial writers are discussing […]
The israel-hamas war now into its third week has taken a terrible toll in the Gaza strip, a narrow (41×9 km) land parcel sited between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan to the east.
Although the latest casus belli is the surprise attack on Israeli civilians in a border town on October 7, and taking of […]
The constitution (one hundred and Twenty Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, introduced in Lok Sabha in the new Parliament building on September 19, and almost unanimously legislated into an Act of Parliament on September 20, reserves one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assembles and the assembly of Delhi NCR state, for women. However […]
Great injustice is being meted out to a large number of citizens by several state governments countrywide by demolition of homes and shops — especially of the Muslim minority community — by bulldozers called in at short notice. The flimsy excuse proffered for the heart-rending razing of painfully accumulated property of bottom-of-pyramid citizens is that […]
The conclusion of the 19th meeting of top-level commanders of the Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to discuss confidence building measures after the bloody River Galwan clash of May 2020, concluded in Chushul on August 14 without any apparent progress. On September 9-10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to meet with […]
In a season of climate change induced by excessive rains and floods whose death and destruction fury has been exacerbated by man-made disasters, news from the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative study saying that 415 million citizens of this benighted republic have escaped multi-dimensional poverty in the years between 2006-2019, has not […]
It’s undeniable that the rain, floods and landslides that swept North India — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and inundated Delhi, the national admin capital — last month are the outcome of global warming and climate change that are Nature’s revenge against unchecked exploitation and carbonization of Planet Earth. However floods fury that routinely […]
The prolonged stand-off between India’s international medal winning wrestlers and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, chairman of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), over allegations of the latter having taken advantage of his position to sexually harass seven women wrestlers, highlights much that is wrong with Indian sports and the justice system which seems beyond redemption.
On […]
The warm bipartisan welcome accorded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by President Joe Biden and the American establishment on his latest visit to the United States is indicative of belated awareness in India and the US that the two countries are natural allies with common interests and objectives. That this awareness dawned on both countries […]
The recently concluded legislative assembly election in Karnataka won by the Congress party with an absolute majority, offers several important lessons for politicians and citizens of all hues and ideological persuasions. Driven by transformational new digital technologies and instant communication provided by social media, electorates across the country are not what they were ten — […]
A report released early last month (April) by the transnational accounting and corporate consultancy firm Ernst & Young and iMocha — billed as the world’s leading skills intelligence and skills assessment platform — titled Tech Skills Transformation — Navigating the Future of Work in 2025 and Beyond reveals a huge deficit of adequately technology skilled […]
The omission of the epochal Mughal era (1526-1857) and references to the importance Mahatma Gandhi attached to Hindu-Muslim unity as also his assassination by a Hindu/RSS fanatic in 1948, in the model class XII history textbook written and commissioned by the National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT) — an autonomous subsidiary of the […]
The 17-day strike called by private medical practitioners in Rajasthan in response to the Rajasthan Medical Care (RMC) Act, 2022, which ended on April 4 after unaided private hospitals which have not received aid or facilitation by the government were exempted, was a national disgrace and exposed the ugly face of the medical profession. The […]
Frequent disruption of the business of Parliament is giving India a bad image abroad and perhaps worse, domestically. For instance at the time of writing this editorial, in the Budget session of Parliament during which the Union Budget 2023-24 was presented the expenditure priorities of the Rs.45 lakh crore budget of the Central government in […]
The resignation of bhushan Patwardhan, executive committee chairperson of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC, estb.1994), on March 5 has opened up a can of worms and aroused fears relating to smooth implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. In his resignation letter to University Grants Commission chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar, Patwardhan alleged […]
The disruption of parliamentary business for two whole days (February 2-3) by the Congress and opposition parties demanding a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) probe into allegations of fraud and stock price manipulation made by an obscure US-based securities firm is a telling example of how public money is wasted by politicians. According to a study […]
Except to left ideologues and academics who the global rejection of communism/socialism notwithstanding, continue to dominate the academy and public discourse, the data is alarming, if not horrifying. According to a front-page banner headline in The Hindu (February 10), 225,000 skilled professionals and/or HNIs (high net worth individuals) renounced Indian passports, migrating abroad last year.
Moreover, […]
Contrary to alarmist headlines in mainstream media proclaiming steep learning loss experienced by children in elementary (class I-VIII) education in rural India, careful reading of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 suggests the opposite. Although because schools in India were ill-advisedly shuttered for 82 weeks to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic […]
The clarion call of vice President Jagdeep Dhankar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, for review of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati Case (1973) in which (accepting the argument of eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala (1920-2002)), the Supreme Court held that legislation enacted by Parliament which violates the “basic structure” of the […]
The resurgence of the covid pandemic in the neighbour People’s Republic of China (PRC) has quite rightly triggered alarm bells in New Delhi and several state admin capitals. Although the PRC government of a communist dictatorship has stopped publishing data on the number of Covid infections and fatalities, by all indications the deadly virus and […]
In an official statement made in Parliament on December 13, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh made light of a December 9 scuffle between Chinese and Indian soldiers on the McMahon line which marks the border in the north-east between the world’s two most populous countries.
However, the clash which prompted banner headlines in the media, is […]
In 1957 Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, designated November 14 — his birthday — as Children’s Day, because he wanted to “create an atmosphere in the country where the attention is constantly focused on children and their welfare”. Yet in this editorial written on Children’s Day 55 years later, it is the lamentable […]
A recent (November 7) judgment of the Supreme Court upheld the 103rd Amendment to the Constitution. By a three-two majority the learned justices validated a patently politically motivated additional 10 percent reserved quota in higher education institutions and government jobs for economically weaker sections (EWS) from the general category. This apex court verdict requires reconsideration […]
Even as the print media and television channels are flooded with advertising inviting the middle class to purchase luxury goods and services ranging from smart TVs, consumer durables, SUVs and foreign holidays during Diwali/Deepavali, the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 report published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe (Germany) ranks India #107 among 122 countries […]
The enthusiastic response of school promoters, trustees, principals and teachers to the 12th EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) 2022-23 Awards conclave which concluded in Gurgaon (Delhi NCR) on October 12, is proof that the tectonic plates of the country’s moribund K-12 education system are shifting. Over 1,400 leaders of the country’s most reputed schools listed […]
Road traffic mismanagement and chaos witnessed 24×7 on the roads of Bengaluru, the administrative capital of the southern state of Karnataka (pop.64 million), is pervading the state’s politics and all sectors of government. A few decades ago, Karnataka had the deserved reputation of being ranked among the country’s most well-governed states offering a business and […]
Heavy rain, flooding and waterlogging of Bengaluru (in 2014 foolish parochial politicians mindlessly surrendered its global brand identity as Bangalore, the IT capital of India) in early September caused substantial damage to business and industry variously estimated at Rs.500-700 crore by way of loss of material, stock-in-trade and production. The tragedy is that such water-logging […]
The alacrity with which the BJP government of Gujarat state accepted a report of the Sentences Review Board (SRB) packed with state government officials including two BJP MLAs (members of legislative assembly), to release 11 convicted criminals serving life sentences for gang-rape of survivor Bilkis Bano, and the daylight murder of her three-yearold daughter and […]
The prime minister’s 75th Independence Day address to the nation from the ramparts of Delhi’s historic Red Fort on August 15, was a departure from usual speeches delivered on this day to mark the end of almost two centuries of British rule over India. Unlike earlier speeches that boasted the tremendous progress the country has […]
MS Dhoni Global School launched in Chennai Cricket superstar MS Dhoni announced the launch of the newest branch of MS Dhoni Global School in Chennai. It will open ... 
CBSE adds 12000 more centres for board examinations CBSE adds 12000 more centres to conduct board examinations for classes 10 and 12 ensuring social distancing. Union HRD minister ... 
GICLM student named Youngest Entrepreneur in the Logistics Sector 13 year old Tilak Mehta, grade 8 student of Garodia International Centre for Learning Mumbai recently made headlines by winning ... 
Bangalore: Private schools to pay teachers by the hour The managements of some private schools in Karnataka have decided that to pay their teacher by the hour instead of ... 
